Authoritarian Deliberation: Lessons for Deliberative Democracy

Almost forty years ago, James Fishkin introduced the deliberative poll as an innovation intended to promote the revival of democracy. But the use of this innovation has progressed beyond the democratic world. The past twenty years have witnessed the emergence (primarily in China) of authoritarian deliberation, a practice in which citizen deliberation takes place using seemingly democratic instruments (such as deliberative polls) in a manner that does not overtly challenge the authoritarian nature of the regime. How can such a practice function within an authoritarian political system? And what lessons can be drawn from authoritarian deliberation for deliberative theory more generally? This paper undertakes a comparative analysis between deliberative polling in the authoritarian and democratic contexts. As a theoretical framework for this analysis, the paper employs deliberative systems theory, which investigates the way a system’s components work together to perform more-or-less successfully various system-level functions. In doing so, the paper relies upon the familiar distinction between input, throughput, and output. In this case, throughput refers to the internal workings of the deliberative poll, whereas input and output refers to the circumstances of the deliberative poll’s creation and to the uptake of the results generated by it, respectively. The analysis in the paper suggests that while deliberative minipublics were conceived as democratic institutions, they seem capable of making similar contributions in authoritarian and democratic contexts. Moreover, the factors determining the extent of these contributions are largely similar. Put another way, deliberative minipublics will succeed or fail, no matter what the regime type, depending upon their connection to other institutions in terms of input and output. Above all, deliberative minipublics only make a difference when they the agents who authorize them (input) and who must act upon their recommendations (output)—typically, the same agents—are willing to do so. There is, however, one conspicuous type of systemic connection that is (potentially) present in democratic systems but not authoritarian ones. This is the connection to the broader public. To the extent that public opinion affects and is affected by deliberative polls, the limits of elite agents regarding these polls can be at least partially overcome. This process is never one-way; rather, the ideal is an interactive exchange between elites, the public, and deliberative polls, with the third of these agents impacting the relationship between the other two. This analysis has implications for the future of deliberative minipublics and similar forms of authoritarian deliberation in China; their ability to affect further system-wide change in an authoritarian context may well prove similar to their ability to do the same in electoral democracies. But given that their maximal impact seems possible only in democracies, the possibilities of authoritarian deliberation should not be exaggerated.